NOTE: This post was published before the 2024 election.

Trump paints a picture of America as a hellscape. He says we’re suffering the worst inflation in history. Illegal immigrants are either eating our pets, stealing our jobs, or invading our kitchens and slitting our throats.

Meanwhile, Biden and Harris are boasting an economy that has rebounded from the depths of the worldwide pandemic and is thriving by every measure:

• Inflation is finally dropping after being driven sky high by the pandemic.
• Unemployment is at historic lows.
• The stock market is soaring to record heights.
• Real estate is starting to perk up a bit as the Fed cuts interest rates.
• Among other things, the Inflation Reduction Act has capped the cost of insulin to $35/month for those on Medicare and authorized Medicare to negotiate other drug prices to reduce costs.
• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will spend $1.2 trillion on new and improved roads, bridges, waterlines, broadband networks, airports and more — all creating union-scale jobs to do the work.

Wow. That’s good stuff — but grocery prices suck! And prices overall are 21.4% more expensive than in February 2020 just prior to COVID.

All the glowing numbers and accomplishments can’t get around that 21% figure. And herein lies Trump’s main strength. Aside from the racist white supremacist layer of his base, I think Trump has tapped into the concerns of a much larger group: average well-meaning and non-racist workers who see their financial security in danger. They don’t feel much hope that things will improve.

Just one problem: Trump can’t fix it. And neither can Harris.

Why?

In a word: capitalism.

A detailed historical, economic and philosophical explanation of capitalism and socialism is beyond the scope of this essay.

For now I simply want to point out one unavoidable consequence and inherent characteristic of capitalism: wealth inequality. It is impossible to have a system based on private profit where some win and some lose without some winning more than others over time. As they win more, they accumulate more in wealth. And as they accumulate more in wealth they accumulate more power and influence. It’s a vicious cycle.

Eventually we end up with this:

For a really dramatic illustration, check this out:

So Here’s the Deal

In a system so badly distorted with enormous power and wealth concentrated in a relatively tiny few, economic justice and opportunity cannot and will not flow openly and fairly — no matter what policies a Trump or a Harris or any other president will implement.

The best you can do is select the proverbial “lesser of two evils.” I see Trump as the greater evil to which I’ll point out three things here.

1. The Trump Tax Cut

First, Trump’s biggest accomplishment as president was a tax cut. That sounds good; we’d all like lower taxes. But who benefited? Not you or me, unless Bill Gates or Elon Musk are reading this post. Those earning under $837,800 a year didn’t make out too well.

Not only did we not benefit from the Trump tax cut, the loss of revenue limits what government can do for us, and it deepens the deficit.

2. The Economic Consequences of Trump’s Policies

Virtually every economist of note says that Trump’s planned policies will make our lives worse. Reuters reported in June that “Sixteen Nobel prize-winning economists signed a letter on Tuesday warning that the U.S. and world economy will suffer if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November.”

In particular, Trump’s stated intent to rely heavily on tariffs against friend and foe poses a severe risk to the economy — which we’ll feel in our daily lives. He spoke this week at the Economic Club of Chicago where he was challenged on the extensive damage his proposed tariffs will do. Then on MSNBC, Steve Rattner, former Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury under Obama, brought out his famous charts and graphs to illustrate.

3. Trump is an Existential Threat to Democracy

On December 3, 2022, Trump posted this to his Truth Social platform:

It might be possible to overlook this one assertion about terminating the Constitution were it not for a litany of other provocative statements and actions that reveal a sympathy for autocrats around the world and a desire to possess similar power himself.

Even after some 60 court cases and multiple recounts in various states, Trump has persisted to this day in denying the outcome of the 2020 election. He enabled and encouraged, if not orchestrated, the violent attack on the Capitol aimed at preventing certification of the election — that is, aimed at overthrowing the will of the voters… you and me. Had he succeeded, it would have been a coup d’état. And not bloodless, because there were injuries and deaths that day.

Just today Federal District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, District of Columbia, has released 2000 pages of evidence that the Justice Department says prove Trump’s guilt and culpability in the events of January 6. You can read it all for yourself in Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3 & Volume 4.

And don’t take just my word for it. Former Vice President Pence is opposing Trump. “It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” he said. More than 200 high-profile Republicans, including former Trump officials, have signed a letter backing Harris. Retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has described Trump as “fascist to the core.” Others have said similar. It’s not just woke leftists who think Trump is a danger. Those in a position to truly know see that he’s a serious threat.

Vote for Harris-Walz

As I’ve said, Harris won’t fundamentally improve things. She’ll likely follow along the path set by Biden with tweaks here and there along the way, not rocking the boat too much. Things may improve a bit under her stewardship, but she can’t overcome the fundamental nature of this system. By definition, there have to be winners and losers.

In theory, Trump could improve things a little bit too, again within the limits of our economic system. But as I’ve tried to show here, Trump will rock the boat — to the point of capsizing it. Most serious is his demonstrated interest in ending fundamental Constitutional rights.

Readers here may not like Harris for one reason or another, or you maybe dislike her for lots of reasons! But I’m guessing you like your basic freedoms and democracy, flawed and imperfect as it is. If so, this year at least, I urge you to hold your nose and vote for Harris. Let’s survive to argue policy another day.

A Deeper Look

In closing I’d like to spend a few moments looking at the facts behind some of Trump’s assertions.

Inflation

In the debate with Kamala Harris, Trump claimed “We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation’s history.”

Nope. Just the opposite. Inflation actually reached its worst point under Trump — at least the highest since 1948.

This chart from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows inflation between January 1948 and September 2024. Notice the highest inflation point over some 75 years occurred under Trump at 14.9% in April 2020. By contrast, Biden was down to 4.1% a month ago.

Zooming in for a closer look:

In all fairness, that 14.9% spike was not Trump’s fault. The whole world was turned upside down by the pandemic as supply chains collapsed and all manner of other disruptions occurred. Trump actually had inflation back down to 6.7% when he left office, high but not the worst in otherwise normal times. Biden has lowered it further.

But, the point I’m making here is that Trump’s claims against Biden on inflation are fantasy. Inflation under Biden has been very much in line with past decades and past presidents of both parties. This is an especially notable accomplishment since the U.S. is doing substantially better with inflation than most of the world, as shown in this data mapped by the International Monetary Fund.

Unemployment

Next let’s look at unemployment and manufacturing. These are a little difficult to compare as Trump entered the White House in 2017 when manufacturing was losing steam at the end of its long recovery from the 2008-2009 Great Recession. Then COVID struck and everything went haywire.

But Trump has made two primary accusations against Biden & Harris concerning jobs and unemployment that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

• He claims that Biden has been “fraudulently manipulating job statistics” since the Bureau of Labor Statistics revises its numbers after initial release. Except they always do this, have done so for years, and did so during his administration.
• In August he laughably claimed that substantially more than 100% of new jobs created over the past year have gone to migrants. Clearly I misunderstood percentages in math class!

Unemployment under Biden has been consistent with the Trump years, except for the giant spike during Trump’s last year in office — again with the pandemic to blame. He gets a pass for the worst of it.

Taxes

I’ve already addressed taxes above, but it’s important as he hails the 2017 tax cut as one of his greatest achievements — behind ending Roe v. Wade.

If Trump is reelected and renews the 2017 tax cuts as planned, the U.S. Treasury will have substantially less revenue in coming years to meet the needs of the people — that is, you & me. Plus it will lead to deepening deficits.

If things are so good, why does it seem so bad?

I started this essay listing some really great numbers. Inflation, jobs, and more. All good. And numbers don’t lie — except they do.

Inflation, for instance, is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), “a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by consumers for a representative basket of consumer goods and services.” Problem is, that representative basket can be manipulated to produce the numbers the government wants.

In 1997, President Clinton improved his inflation numbers by moving the goal post. He switched out what goods are in our shopping cart, like buying the store brand instead of the better name brand. Voilà! Look how good inflation has gotten!

Another factor is physics — or more correctly, its opposite. What goes up often doesn’t come back down again. For instance, if inflation drives Product X up from $4.00 to $5.00, that often becomes the new set point. When inflation cools Product X may drop back to $4.80, but it will never return to $4.00 again.

So, voters today are understandably upset and restless, looking for a bull (Trump) to crash the china shop (the system or Deep State or whatever). Just think and be careful. Once we smash democracy it will be very hard to patch it back together.

Title image is from Shutterstock.